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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TideGlider who wrote (75306)	11/18/2009 11:47:57 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	2 Recommendations Respond to of 224704

Climate Of Envy Posted 07:49 PM ET Mythology: Europe's fixation with global warming indicates that many on the continent aren't firmly tethered to reality. Consider the madness found in a leading German publication. Using prose that would be better suited for fiction, Christian Schwagerl, in an opinion piece for Der Spiegel, wildly claims that "if the rest of the world were to follow the U.S. example in their approach to fossil fuels, the oceans would not only heat up, but would probably soon begin to boil." As if that wasn't enough evidence of a growing European irrationality, the Der Spiegel staff writer drifts into a fevered narrative deeper in the piece. "For most Americans, the world beyond the U.S.' borders is nothing more than an irritating nuisance," he wrote in an essay titled "Obama Has Failed the World on Climate Change." "For this reason, arguments based on appeals about drowning Bangladeshis, starving Africans and flooded islands in Indonesia have little effect." Drowning Bangladeshis? Starving Africans? Flooded Indonesians? There's no evidence that man's carbon dioxide emissions are causing such problems. Yet Der Spiegel lets Schwagerl recklessly fling baseless charges. And the shrillness doesn't end there. "Entrenched lobbyists of the oil and coal industries," he writes, "are the worst energy wasters on the planet — and are thus, indirectly, a major threat to world peace in the 21st century." As for those Americans who aren't entrenched lobbyists for demonized industries, well, they "consume twice as much fossil fuel per capita" and "their cars are too big, their homes are not energy-efficient and they have yet to focus their talents for innovation away from trivial entertainment gadgets and toward renewable energy technologies." For Schwagerl, it's clear that the world inside America's borders is nothing more than an irritating nuisance. Unless something was catastrophically lost in translation, Schwagerl has revealed himself to be a raving alarmist. But is he representative of most Europeans? When Der Spiegel, which sells nearly a million magazines a week, lets him go on for nearly 1,400 words, you've got to wonder. Should anyone wish to know why Europe has bought so fully into the global warming nonsense, Schwagerl clears that up in his rant about Americans' lifestyles. He is typical of many in the Old World who are jealous of U.S. prosperity and demand that Washington adopt CO2 emissions limits that would bridle our economy. They want Americans' lives to be as materially meager as theirs.